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Elsie Burrell

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Elsie Burrell (10 February 1885 – 1st February 1955) was an English artist, watercolourist and portrait painter.

Born in Thetford (Norfolk), she was the daughter of Robert George Burrell, a manufacturer of steam engines, and Ellen Alborough Cockayne. She was the second girl amongst seven daughters and one son.[1][2]

Very soon, she showed a talent for watercolour: at the age of eleven, she won a prize in a local exhibition. She specialized in portraits and by 1913, she had moved to London and started a career as a society portraitist. Among those whose portraits she painted were actresses Gladys Cooper, Marie Löhr, Muriel Beaumont and Irene Vanbrugh[3], and society individuals, such as Miriam Rothschild as a young girl[4][5] and Lady Marjorie Duff.[6] In May 1913, an exhibition of her portraits was held in New Bond Street, London[7][8], and in March-April 1914, another exhibition was held at the Dudley Galleries, Piccadilly.[9][10][11] Her exhibitions were reported by several newspapers and society magazines such as Tatler and The Sketch, which published black and white reproductions of her watercolours. Colour reproductions of her portraits were sold during her exhibitions, and as postcards.[12][13] Reviewers noted that her style had "grace and simplicity"[14]; despite the “over-prettiness” of her works, it evolved to “a happy knack of catching likenesses” and a “gift of depicting life-like expression”.

In 1915 she painted and exhibited portraits of soldiers. On one occasion during a sitting[15], she met Major Boyd Alexander Cuninghame (born in Australia in 1871); he was a war hero who took part in the Boer War and, during WWI, fought against the Germans in Rhodesia, in December 1914 and in 1915.[16] He was wounded and sent back to Britain to recuperate. They married on 12 July 1916; two weeks earlier, the Tatler had published her photo with the caption "Miss Elsie Burrell. The well-known artist who is shortly to be married to Major Boyd Cuninghame (late Scots Greys), who has been serving with the Northern Rhodesia Rifles".[17] As Major Cuninghame had two farms in Makeni (Lusaka, Rhodesia), Elsie followed her husband to Africa and abandoned her artistic career and watercolour practice. Less than one year later, in March 1917, Major Cunninghame died of typhoid fever in Elisabethville (Congo).[16] Elsie continued to manage both farms successfully[15], and samples of wheat she had grown won a prize in London.[18]

In 1920, Sir Randolf Baker (1879-1959), a British politician, met Elsie in Makeni. They married on 29 June 1920 in Livingstone (Rhodesia). The couple ran the farms and divided their time between Rhodesia and Ranston House, near Blandford Forum in Dorset.[15] Their daughter Selina Baker was born in 1925. Elsie died at Ranston House on the 1st February 1955.

References

  1. ^ Pine, L. G. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (99th ed.). London. p. 116. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  2. ^ "The Charles Burrell Family". Charles Burrell Museum, Thetford. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  3. ^ "Door 16: The Geologist, the Monocled Lady and the Sultan: A Peek into Edwardian Middle Class Life". Geological Society of London Blog. 16 December 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  4. ^ "Annual Review 2010: Principal Acquisitions 1 April 2009-31 March 2010" (PDF). The Rothschild Archive. p. 55. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  5. ^ "Artworks: Portraits". The Rothschild Archive. Retrieved 2018-10-27. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  6. ^ "Elsie Burrell (British, exhib.1914) Portrait of Lady Marjorie Duff". Chilcotts Auctioneers. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  7. ^ "In Town and Out". The Tatler: 5. 30 April 1913. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  8. ^ "The Clubman". The Sketch: 7. 7 May 1913. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  9. ^ "A Mixed Bag". The Tatler: 68. 25 March 1914. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  10. ^ "With Silent Friends". The Tatler: 60. 1 April 1914. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  11. ^ "Dudley Galleries, British Flowering Plants by Mrs Heny Perrin, and Portraits in Water-Colours by Miss Elsie Burrell". The Connoisseur, an Illustrated Magazine for Collectors. 39–40: 45. 1914. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  12. ^ "Henry Stone". Gladys Cooper On Postcard. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  13. ^ Coysh, Arthur Wilfred (1984). The Dictionary of Picture Postcards in Britain, 1894-1939. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 978-1851492312.
  14. ^ "Art Exhibitions: Miss Burrell's Portraits". The Standard: 4 (top of column 5). 27 March 1914. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  15. ^ a b c Hobson, Dick; Dodgson, Margaret (1979). Showtime: a history of the Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia, 1914-1976. Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia. p. 38. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  16. ^ a b "Boyd Alexander CUNINGHAME". Fairlies Men of the Great War. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  17. ^ King, Richard (28 June 1916). "With Silent Friends". The Tatler: 18. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  18. ^ "The Northern Rhodesia Journal". 4. 1959: 273. Retrieved 27 October 2018. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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